


what went unspoken

by SEMellark



Category: Free!
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Unrequited Haruka/Rin, Light Angst, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Omega!Haruka, Omega!Makoto, Omega/Omega, Soulmates, haru has vague family baggage but don't we all, very mild angst everyone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:54:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26435248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SEMellark/pseuds/SEMellark
Summary: Haruka doesn’t know if he believes in souls, but it makes sense when Makoto says it. He doesn’t know how else to explain his sudden compulsive need to crawl into Makoto’s skin, to leave a mark that would never fade, claim the other omega as his forever.
Relationships: Nanase Haruka/Tachibana Makoto
Comments: 5
Kudos: 105





	what went unspoken

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as a sort of balm for what this year has done to my mental health, and I hope it can bring someone else even an ounce of the same feeling. For me, writing for this fandom has always felt like coming home, and I'll always want to share that.

Haruka never said so while they were growing up, but Makoto’s scent reminds him of the sea. Hearing those words from his best friend’s mouth would have sent him into a panic spiral of trauma and self-loathing, so Haruka kept the words firmly behind his teeth.

From an early age, Makoto’s scent was the one Haruka learned to associate with comfort. When they were seven, eight years old, long before they ever Presented, Haruka would set his nose to Makoto’s neck and feel at ease. At that age, they felt they’d grown too old to retreat back to their parents’ nests after a long day, and after school, they would sit together on the steps leading up to their houses, giggling into one another’s shoulders and rubbing their wrists together.

Their neighbors thought it was precious. They whispered about the un-Presented Nanase and Tachibana boys, and how _surely,_ they would grow into dynamics that would reflect the closeness they developed early in their lives.

The whispers only continued when Makoto Presented omega, but they took another edge entirely when Haruka followed a few months after, the only “late bloomer” in his grade.

Personally, Haruka doesn’t know how anyone would’ve imagined either of them to be alphas. He’s always preferred to blend in, fade into the background and allow someone else to have the spotlight. He didn’t bare his teeth when other children stole his things, or dote on the weaker, smaller kids in his class. Haruka just kept to himself, and even as a child learning about second-gender dynamics, omega-hood always made more sense to him.

Makoto is probably another story, though anyone who knew him well would’ve seen the signs. He was soft and quiet where other children weren’t, and he clung to Haruka at every opportunity. Even when he began to grow into his body, Makoto seemed to instinctively hunch his shoulders to make himself smaller whenever he was uncomfortable, and he never grew out of the habit of jumping behind Haruka when he was scared.

Maybe their friends and neighbors couldn’t see, but Haruka and Makoto had, way before their bodies caught up with what their instincts had always known. 

Their adolescence was spent navigating around the parameters established for them. Iwatobi was a small, coastal town, and certain things just weren’t as common as they were in Tokyo or other big cities. There wasn’t fear, not necessarily, but the two of them learned not to hold hands for too long at school or scent one another on the steps in the early evening.

It weighed more on their parents than anyone else. Haruka eavesdropped on more than one conversation between his parents and Makoto’s, spoken in hushed tones that didn’t really convey how they felt as much as their scent did. Makoto was always too scared to actually broach the subject with them, perhaps because his sense of smell wasn’t as acute as Haruka’s. In those moments of hushed conversation especially, their parents smelled like air before a storm, like cracks of lightning.

No, Haruka never feared what their parents thought. He was more worried about what they would do to protect them.

They mostly kept to themselves. There were others, like Asahi and Ikuya, who were much too focused on swimming to pay close attention to how Haruka and Makoto orbited around one another. There was Nagisa, of course, who knew them before hormones assuaged them like waves against the coast. He never bat an eye no matter what they did, and when they grew apart after middle school, Haruka missed the comfort and ease he felt around the blond boy.

Rin was… well, Haruka had Rin pinned from day one. There was nothing beta or omega-like about the redhead: he was pure passion and fire, loud and domineering in a way that repelled Haruka innately. He wasn’t interested in competition or proving himself to be the best, not in the way Rin was.

The interest was there, Haruka thinks. At least in the beginning. Iwatobi was too small, and it was too easy to fall into the first person or thing that felt even remotely comfortable. And he doesn’t fault Rin for finding that in him, for pushing when Haruka pulled and demanding every ounce of his attention.

Haruka doesn’t fault him, because he knows that childhood crushes are a vicious thing. Even if Haruka hadn’t been totally repulsed by the idea of mating with an alpha someday, he was far too wrapped up in Makoto to understand what Rin had been trying to tell him.

And by the time Haruka thought that maybe something wasn’t right, Rin had left for Australia. The time and distance killed whatever interest Rin might have had in Haruka, or so he claims, but Haruka still feels a slight amount of guilt for breaking someone’s heart when they were too young to know better.

It was just that none of it had ever seemed important to him. Not when Makoto was right there, had always _been_ there. Before puberty, before their classes on second gender, there was Makoto. From the second they’d met on the playground, he’d been the most important thing in Haruka’s life. Not even swimming could compare.

And hadn’t that been a terrible realization, when Haruka was seventeen and felt like the world was crumbling down around him. When college was looming, and Makoto’s gaze was fixated on Tokyo. Makoto would leave, and what would Haruka have without him?

That was the longest stretch of time they’d gone without speaking since they were small children. Haruka had yelled at Makoto in a way he never had before, and as soon as he registered the fear and anguish in Makoto’s scent, Haruka ran.

He’d found himself back in his parents’ nest that night, curled into his mother while she purred and stroked his hair. She hadn’t asked what was wrong, and neither had his father, when he came home later after a night out with his coworkers. Haruka’s beta father had sat just outside the nest as his mate whispered words of comfort to their child, not knowing what was wrong but never once intruding on the moment.

“I don’t want to be like him,” Haruka remembers saying, and that had been the heart of the issue, hadn’t it? The root of all his fears and worries, the ones he hadn’t given much thought to since he and Makoto Presented as omega all those years ago.

“You aren’t,” his mother said.

“You couldn’t be,” his father insisted. His eyes had gone dark, misting over as he remembered. Haruka had felt the barrage of his father’s memories like they were his own, recalling the last moments of his paternal grandmother’s life as she lost herself to memories of her first mate, Haruka’s father’s sire, the man she’d spent half of her life trying to run from. “You’re a good man, Haruka.”

The words only made Haruka cry harder. Good men didn’t yell at the person they loved like that. They didn’t make them smell of fear and regret. If Haruka were a good man, he wouldn’t have lashed out at the idea of being left behind. He was just as possessive and consuming as the only person his grandmother had ever feared.

Haruka didn’t go to school for days. He stayed in his nest of pillows and blankets, old shirts belonging to his friends and swim trunks that still smelled of chlorine. His parents wandered in and out, speaking to him and scenting him as much as he would allow. Any invasion to his space felt like an apocalyptic event, especially when the only person Haruka wanted was the same person he absolutely couldn’t see.

It almost felt like he was going into heat, though Haruka knew that wasn’t what was happening. It was something else, something deeper than hormones or biology. He didn’t understand it, but it started and ended with an omega who smelled of the ocean.

As much as his parents respected his boundaries, there was only so much they were willing to let Haruka get away with. On the sixth day of his self-imposed isolation, he heard the phone ringing from downstairs. He was half in a doze, entirely too out of it to make out the faint rumbling of his father’s voice, so he thought nothing of it as the morning wore on.

But then the doorbell rang, and there were footsteps on the stairs, and Haruka was alert in a way he hadn’t been in days. His nerves went alight, because he’d recognize that scent anywhere, from any distance, and he was in no way ready to face what it implied.

Maybe that made him a coward. Maybe Haruka was worse than any alpha in that regard. He had no excuses for how he’d acted, and he wasn’t prepared to look Makoto in the eye and listen to him as he offered forgiveness that Haruka hadn’t earned.

Haruka had been working himself up into a panic, tangled in blankets he’d owned since childhood, but everything stopped when Makoto came into his room and knelt beside Haruka’s bed and his perpetual mess of a nest. “Haru-chan,” Makoto said quietly, voice breaking halfway through, and in his green eyes, Haruka found every ounce of agony and fatigue he’d been experiencing. “Can I come in?”

They’d shared nests before, and even heats as they grew older. Haruka tended to sleep through his, content with an orgasm here and there and a nose-full of Makoto’s scent. Makoto was different, wanted that and more, whatever Haruka was willing to give him. They’d grown into omega-hood together, and they knew one another’s habits as well as their own.

Makoto had never _asked_ to come into Haruka’s nest before.

After that, it was just a matter of wrangling Makoto into him fast enough. Haruka didn’t care that his parents were downstairs, or that the both of them were blinking back tears as they pulled at one another’s clothes. They weren’t even hard, but the relief Haruka felt when Makoto was seated inside him, settled into the gap between his thighs, was absolutely soul shattering.

“Haru,” Makoto said shakily, face buried in the scent gland at the base of Haruka’s neck, and Haruka shivered, arms locked tight around the other omega’s shoulders. “I’m sorry, I’m – ”

“Don’t,” Haruka gasped, squeezing his eyes shut. Makoto whimpered, but Haruka just held on tighter, squeezing his thighs around Makoto’s hips. “It doesn’t matter.”

But Makoto wouldn’t be deterred. It didn’t matter if they were naked, or if what was happening was beyond the realm of anything they had ever done before. He shook his head, hips twitching as he tongued at the place on Haruka’s neck where a mating bite would go. And Haruka had never been particularly vocal before that day, so the whine that squeezed out of his lungs was entirely foreign.

“I love you,” Makoto said, and Haruka jolted, fingers digging into Makoto’s skin. The other omega seemed to sag even harder against him in response, growing heavier with each passing second. “I can’t believe I’ve never said it before. That’s crazy, isn’t it? After everything we’ve been through, I could never just _tell you_.”

Haruka’s tears spilled over as he blinked, and he hated the way they felt against his skin. “You didn’t have to,” he said. They were something unspoken, something innately understood, like their second genders prior to puberty. It was just something Haruka had grown up knowing: he was an omega, and he was in love with Makoto. “But I didn’t either.”

“You ran before I could tell you,” Makoto continued, becoming genuinely upset, scent souring with grief and something else that drew another whine from Haruka’s throat. “I love you. I’ve _always_ loved you, Haru-chan. Even if I go to Tokyo, there’s nothing that could keep me away from you.”

There it was. That hint of desperation in Makoto’s scent, the weight of his body. It was possession, laid bare in ways Haruka was most familiar with. And suddenly, he didn’t know why he’d been afraid. He and Makoto weren’t an arranged mating fated for disaster. The only reason they were here was because they both wanted to be; it had always been that simple.

Haruka slid his hands into Makoto’s hair – oilier than usual, he must not have bathed in a few days either – and bore down, relishing in Makoto’s little groan, the jackrabbit of his hips. Their emotions were spent, laid bare for one another, and their bodies were finally catching up. “Bite me,” Haruka said, and he would’ve never been caught begging before, but the fear that Makoto would deny him or insist that they wait made him brazen. “You’ve wanted to, I know you have.”

It was the first time he’d verbally acknowledged the longing stares Makoto had been giving his neck for the better part of two years. Their mating was an inevitability to Haruka, and he’d never thought to give voice to it before. It would happen in its own time. But Haruka wanted the time to be _right then,_ didn’t want to live another moment as a person who didn’t belong to Makoto, wholly and completely.

Even without Haruka’s hands holding him into place, Makoto offered no resistance as he nuzzled into Haruka’s neck once more before sinking his teeth into his scent gland. And Haruka would’ve been arching against the bed if he weren’t pinned into place, acutely aware of the pain blooming on his neck, the heat of Makoto growing hard within him.

It wasn’t like they were taught. There was no feeling of something having slotted into place, no immediate recognition of his place in the world having changed. All Haruka felt was relief, so potent he began to sob with it. It was the one and only time in his life he’d cried that hard and for that long, and if it were in front of anyone else, Haruka would have been embarrassed, ashamed.

But Makoto made it bearable, alternating between purring into Haruka’s ear and lapping at the site of his mating bite.

“Haru,” Makoto eventually called, bringing Haruka back down from wherever he’d gone before. The other omega’s eyes were green and bright as he stared down at Haruka, and the blood on his bottom lip stoked a fire deep in Haruka’s belly even as his chest bounced with lingering sobs. “Haru-chan, are you with me?”

“’m here,” Haruka mumbled, feeling puffy and gross. His growing arousal was becoming harder to ignore, especially when he saw how dark Makoto’s eyes were becoming; mostly, Haruka just felt half out of his mind, like he was riding along the edge of a dream. “’m yours.”

Makoto planted a hand on the mattress to brace himself as he began to roll his hips in earnest, and Haruka hiccupped, reaching up to claw at Makoto’s forearm. “You’ve been mine.” Makoto’s hair fell in front of his eyes as he hunched over Haruka, tear tracks drying on his cheeks even as new ones began to form, dripping off his chin and pooling at Haruka’s collarbone. “And I’ve been yours, Haru. _Please,_ just – just tell me you didn’t doubt that.”

Haruka shook his head, reaching up to grasp at the back of Makoto’s neck. The other omega stuttered in the steady rhythm he’d set, eyes fluttering as he fell back down against Haruka’s chest, breath hot on the wound at the base of Haruka’s neck. “Never,” Haruka murmured, and when he sank his own teeth into Makoto’s scent gland, it felt a little like waking up.

Years later, Haruka doesn’t like being reminded of their mating. He didn’t learn until later that his parents left when Makoto arrived, wanting to give the boys privacy, but that didn’t stop Haruka from stewing in his own embarrassment for weeks afterward.

It wasn’t that Haruka regretted what happened, or even what he discovered about himself as a result. He just struggled to understand their actions, his and Makoto’s, when neither of them was in heat and they still acted so completely out of their minds.

Makoto doesn’t bring it up as much anymore, but he gets particularly sentimental on their anniversary. Neither of them has classes, but they don’t have many plans for the day; Haruka thinks getting to stay in their nest for as long as they want is its own special treat considering the hustle and bustle of Tokyo. “You know what I think happened, Haru?” Makoto asks, grinning when Haruka groans and tries to squirm away from him.

Haruka knows what Makoto thinks. He’s heard it so many times before, yet he still says, “What do you think?”

“We’re a pair-bond,” Makoto says, voice hushed in a way it only is when he talks about this. A shiver goes down Haruka’s spine, and Makoto curls around him, arm heavy against Haruka’s hip. “The first of our kind.”

It’s not like pair-bonds between omegas are unheard of, although they’ve never personally met others like them. Makoto sometimes enjoys indulging in the fantasy that their love is one in a billion, and Haruka isn’t one to deny him anything, so he stays quiet.

“We didn’t see one another for nearly a week after we fought.” Makoto’s scent wavers, tinged faintly with sadness as he remembers, and Haruka’s responding purr is instinctive, low and comforting, for Makoto’s ears only. “I really do think our bodies or souls or whatever were reacting to that, like we’d gone into withdrawal or something.”

Haruka doesn’t know if he believes in souls, but it makes sense when Makoto says it. He doesn’t know how else to explain his sudden compulsive need to crawl into Makoto’s skin, to leave a mark that would never fade, claim the other omega as his forever.

“Sounds codependent.”

Makoto huffs a laugh against Haruka’s mating bite. “We wrote the book.”

“It’s not so bad,” Haruka adds softly, dragging Makoto’s baby blanket closer to his nose. He could fall asleep like this, he thinks, even with the sounds of traffic wafting in from the apartment’s open window.

Makoto must notice, since he hooks his chin over Haruka’s shoulder and says, “You like that thing more than I do. You won’t even let me wash it. It can’t smell that good, can it?”

Haruka closes his eyes. Some part of him will always want to protect Makoto. So, he doesn’t tell his mate that the blanket smells like the sea. Like salt and the sun, wet sand and sunscreen. It’s a scent burned into all of Haruka’s memories, the roof of his mouth, the gland at his neck, and every other crevice of his body.

“Home,” says Haruka. “It smells like home.”


End file.
